Day 5 - The Weekend

It is Saturday, and I slept in. Usually, we have a volleyball game with one duaghter, and a soccer game with the other. So saturdays are spent rushing around fro place to place, and entertaining a 2 year old while we rush (excuse the pun, but my 2 year's name is Rush).

Tammy went out with some friends last night, and Rush and I watched the movie Up and about 10 episodes of the Wonder Pets. I was so tired, that I fell nodded off for a while right as Ming-Ming and the gang were rescuing a baby Lochness Monster. So no run to Town Lake last night or this morning. Tonight, Tammy, Rush, and I went for a walk, and we really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the slower pace (my freaking feet are so sore) and Tammy and Rush enjoyed being out and about. I took the blwo pics with my eyeFone, and I think that I am going to have to start carrying my Canon xti Rebel with me. I just can't seem to not take pictures, and I am sure that I can find some wya to run while holding a camera. Damn, I drive with one in my hand all the time, so running with one should be a piece of cake.

There is a large Red Shouldered Hawk somewhere in this picture.

This tree intrigues me as I pass it each day.

Drinking....

I haven't had a drink all we until last night. It has been nice, and no as hard as I expected. It's funny how a habit can grasp one in it's clutches, and turn into addiction. Drink has clouded my thinking and aged me a bit. Not to mention that I enjoy the dark beers, so my waste line is a bit doughier than it used to be. I am going to enjoy drinking again, I think, because I am not doing it every night. Just on weekends. 

My hope is that cutting back on my drinking and running twice a day for a total of 3 hours a day will help me to slim down and not be embarrassed when Tammy and I visit our friends at the nuddies at Hippy Hollow. We shall see.....

Day 3 & 4 of Operation RC40

10:30PM - Ready to run to Town Lake and Back

I decided to not get up yesterday (day 3) and today day 4) morning to run, since I was going to need to leave my house by 7:00AM to get my girls to school.  My feet hurt so much the night before, that I took a bath to  soaked them. After a few minutes of soaking, I fell asleep in the tub, and woke up coughing water. I know! I know! Not a smart thing to do.

Yesterday's lunch was a taco salad and only one coke.I did really well at not eating a bunch of candy and carbs. Later that night I had another coke and some grill chicken. after my daughter's soccer game.

I don't seem to be getting to bed any earlier than before. I ended up staying up until 2:00 working on some videos for school. I fell asleep working on my laptop, and was awoken by Geddy the Bunny free style dry humping my leg.

My thoughts right now are lingering towards Thoreau's Solitude chapter in Walden. It goes like this:

"I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company even with the best is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

I am NOW a loner by nature. Most people see me as an extrovert, and at times I am, but I am an introvert @ the core. Extroverts recharge their batteries by being around people, talking, etc.... Introverts withdraw into themselves and their solitude to recharge. After a busy day at work, I need to just unplug myself. I don't know if I have ADD or what, but my mind is very distractible! An it is really hard to filter all the stimuli without going crazy! The only example that I can really think of that captures what I feel is driving in the pouring rain with your windshield wipers off. When the rain starts, you have these huge drops that begin hitting the windshield. Your eyes go to each drop. Pretty soon the drops turn into a down pour, and your entire field of vision is overwhelmed by the pounding rain that obscure your sight. After experiencing that all day, you want to come home and rest. Shut out all the stimuli, and withdrawal.  I haven't found a really great way to deal with this, until I found meditation. Meditation has taught me not to block out the noise, but to deal with it, and survive. More on meditation and my embrace with Buddhism later.....


But old habits seem to die hard, and now I have to spend large chunks of time by myself. Don't get me wrong. I love laughing with friends, drinking with Mino, and making people laugh, and my wife comments to me that people would be surprised at how insecure I am thinking that I am not liked by most, or that I suffer from extreme anxiety and depression, or that I have these cognative battels taht are waging within me. From what people tell me, I am seen as someone as an eccentric person who makes people laugh and that people like to be around. I see myself very differently......

Day 2 of OPERATION:RC40 - Nov 11th, 2009

5:15AM - I could barely keep my eyes open

I have been super tired today! I went for a walk this morning at 5:30ish, and got home at 7:00. I walked all the way down to McKinney's Town Lake, around the lake, then back home. It was dark the entire time, until about 15 minutes before I got back home.

Today's Diet:

• hard boiled eggs and a bananner for breakfast
• Mango green tea
• one coke
• several miniature kit kats
• water, water, water!
• Oriental salad for lunch
• 6 inch subway club for dunch
• 11:00PM meal - grill chicken salad.

I might need to get some new shoes, cuz my feets hurt! The bottoms of my feet feel like they have been worked over with a ball ball bat, and I am getting a few spots for potential blisters.

Tonight I walked again the same route as this morning.

It was nice not being rushed this morning. Usually, I roll out of bed, after drinking too much the night before, and hurry to get ready for work, then rush off to work. This morning, I had some thinking time, on my walk, so I didn't feel rushed today. That was nice.
Now that my evening walk is over, I am dog tired. I plan on getting up for a shorter walk in the morning, since I have to drive the girls to school, and we leave at 7AM. We'll see.

Day 1 of Operation RC40

What a great day! I was greeted with many birfday well wishing today. Who would have thought that so many people care. Thanks to all!

You know (no actually you don't) only a few years ago, I actually didn't think I would see 35, and I almost didn't, but that is a story for another time. I am alive, and each day is a gift....a gift that I have been ignoring...."my ring of brass lay rusting on the floor"........But no more!  

Here are some of the things that I am planing on doing over the next year to aid in my evolution. This is not an all inclusive list in any certain order......

• wake early -HD Thoreau is right about morning walks. "An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
• in bed by 11:00PM-ish instead of 2:00AMish
• ride my bike or walk each day
• meditate each day even if it is for 5 minutes. Practice is important.
• yoga/stretching daily
• better practice of the 8 Fold Path
• get soil under my fingermails......gardening used to be life for me....
• avoid cokes - drink agua instead of 10 cokes a day.
• don't drink alkyhal evey night (difficult)
• tell my wife she is beautiful and that I love her..
• switch back to green tea versus coffee
• eat less red meat, and then eventually meat altogether meat. MG was right!""Spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants." --Mahatma Gandhi" (difficult)
• take one daily picture of "a day in the life of Coop"
• journal, journal, journal....reflect...reflect....reflect...then act on reflections
• spend more quality time with Tender TammyTams & the little squids
• do the right thing, no matter what
• help others that I see in need
• get back to a size 34 waist......I have become a bit doughy with all the money I have invested in Shiners .......HMMMMM...Shiner.....
• listen to more John Denver, Iron & Wine, and Calexico
• give away possessions that I dont need but am clinging too....(declutterizerficationing)

I better get to bed, cuz I have told myself that I would be walking again in the morning.

THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKEN!

(My soundtrack as I write this: Ten Years Gone)

Wow! 40 years have flown by like that! (snapping his fingers) It seems like just yesterday that I would come home from school, eat some warm chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk while watching Scooby-Doo and lust after Daphney! Oh, that actually is what I did yesterday. Well, you get my point... 

There is so many great memories that I have from the past 40 years, and I really want to be able to have 40 more great years. In order for this to happen, I know that I need to take better care of myself. I don't want to look back over the next (however many years I have left) and have any regrets. I know that I can be a better friend, husband, father, brother, and human!

So to steal a line from one of my favorite SciFi books, Frank Herbert's Dune, "The Sleeper must awaken!"

My plan is to consciously change some bad habits (emotional, physical, spiritual, and metaphysical) that I seem to have developed over the course of 40 years. I am setting this blog up, not necessarily so you, the innocent bystander, can witness my transformation, but also, I  want to be able to look back a year from now, and be able to see this "hungry little caterpillar" (great book) transforming into a butterfly. I plan to update this blog everyday with my progress. I want my kids to be able to look at this, and be able to see their father as a real human who loves, struggles, feels deeply, etc... Not the picture that others have painted of me. SO there will be times that I update this blog with a quick status report, and trhere will be other times when I will dive below the surface of my waters to delve the depths of my soul. SO be warned , and prepared to meet the real Coop.  I am giving myself a year to change that which I feel is hampering my emotional, physical, and astral evolution. I WILL look back on November 10, 2009 as a turning point in my life.

I WILL FINALLY GET IT RIGHT! THE SLEEPER WILL AWAKEN!..........He Must....